Rattle Snake Lodge - Memoirs of a Seeing Woman

By BK Smith

MY NAME IS AMANDA FRENCH. My family name French, I believe says it all. We, the French women, were born to wear elegant clothing and accessories, the finer brocades and silks, fluid and cool, raw dupioni and nubby shantung, the texture that is pure sex to the hand that appreciates.

All the women in my family have some sense of the future and will tell you what it holds; and even before I was sure what it was, I knew I had it, the power to see. My grandmother, a healer, could interpret the sky; predict weather patterns, upcoming anomalies, drought, that sort of thing. My sister read hands; tiny crooked lines leading up and down, front to back, thumb to wrist, are the roads she helps to navigate. My aunt could read dreams and tell an expectant mother the sex of her unborn baby. My great grandmother could heal "troublesome ailments" and call out evil spirits from the sick, the overlooked, and cursed alike. And her mother, my great great grandmother before her, was known to associate with ghosts, the spirits that have passed over but not before promising to return and tell all, which they did by channeling through her in different languages. Her sister, my great aunt, could tell you the day and time of your birth and the day and time of your death.

Sometimes I know the future in my breast. Sometimes I see the future coming out like a picture show, images that seep into your head the way rainwater collects in a basement corner, gathering from no place in particular. More often though, I see events in tea leaves, little bits of myself floating to the top of a shapely Spode china cup, tentatively dancing along the fragile gold leaf rim like your last memories in the few minutes before death. Often as I would stare down into my tomorrow, wondering if I should drink the brew or run to the sink and pour it down the drain, I would often do the latter. It's not that a particular vision was so frightening or alienâ I grew up after all with these gifted women around me conversing with entities neither you nor I could seeâ it's just the memory of seeing trouble early in a courtship and remembering what it felt like, one lone tear snaking down my face, and my words all square and neat as I told him, "I love you but... I see no future." Or, I did see a future and there was no happiness in it. But, with this man, with Reed, I never saw a blessed thing. I never saw anything at all in the beginning. If I had, it would have been as shocking I'm sure as seeing blood on the moon. I guess it's true what they say, that you never see the bus that hits you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780990930525

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Lipstick Mountains Memoirs #3

B.K. Smith

Memoirs of a Seeing Woman

Lipstick Mountains Press

Madison Avenue Publishers LLC

2015

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Epigraph

Dedication

Prologue

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

PART TWO

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

PART THREE

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

PART FOUR

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

PART FIVE

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

PART SIX

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

PART SEVEN

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

Excerpt of Manifest Destiny

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, including electronic information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publishers except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

RATTLESNAKE LODGE

Memoirs of a Seeing Woman

B.K. Smith

Copyright © 2015 B.K.Smith

ISBN 978-0-9909305-2-5

The Lipstick Mountains Memoirs Series

#1 CHELSEA MATINEE –

Memoirs of an Easy Woman

#2 SANDS POINT –

Memoirs of a Money Trader

#3 RATTLE SNAKE LODGE –

Memoirs of a Seeing Woman

#4 MANIFEST DESTINY –

Memoirs of a Dreaming Woman

Also:

The Ecology of Photography

Lipstick Mountains Press

Madison Avenue Publishers LLC

Scottsdale, Arizona

602 622 1078

[e-mail]

We don’t see things as they are, but as we are. -- Anais Nin

For J.J. Morgan

Gabriella Sophia & Annika Lucia

Prologue

F— is probably the most versatile word in the American-English language. It is a noun as well as a verb. It can be an adjective, an adverb, a pronoun, and a preposition. It can even be a dangling participle—if you hook it just right between two words in a sentence.

F— this and f— that. F— you, f— me. Bloody F— it all… This is a story that begins and ends with that very versatile expletive. If you have ever worked on a trading desk or for a bank on the inside of Wall Street, or anyplace in the world, as I did for more years than I care to recount, then you have either used it or heard it used in nearly every sentence, context and tense. We have a very limited vocabulary because we trade inside a hairline fraction—a 64th and a 64th+—which means 1/64th to 1/129th of 1%. And a lot of money rides on these razor-thin spreads, because of the volume and the size of the trade. There is much riding on one-half of a basis point (.005%) move in any direction. Say, in oil futures, gold or treasury bills.

Quiescent is another word I learned on Wall Street. Quiescent (adj., kwee-ES-sent) markets allow you to catch your breath and catch up on trade tickets, delivery instructions and postings, and relationships—personal and professional. A joke or rumor can leave London, go to Boston, and be in San Diego in 10 minutes, passing through various states, not necessarily in a straight line. Quiescent means calm, flat, and creeping along sideways. You can hang money out there like wet wash and watch it flap up and down a fractional bid and offering, and at night you can pull it in like so many socks on a piece of line, only to throw it back out tomorrow, with or without other more deleterious trades. Can’t have calm and flat all the time and make any money, that is, in this, the greatest market ever. Money is made when there is movement, where time and intrinsic value have a little dance, and you try to get right inside it and push them apart, to widen a spread so everyone gets a piece, even though you just weaseled your own way in. A spread is where money is made, whether the overall market is going up or it is going down. If you can find parity between two instruments, and it could be between a Volkswagen and a goat, just handicap the differential. It’s that simple and you can make a market and arbitrage it. All is well so long as the overall market is moving, and not skidding sideways for too long, which would signal something else. Even quiescent markets have rustlings and stirrings. Sometimes the market moves fast and changes direction without warning, like gaggles of baby quail in the side yard, and you simply cannot get your arms around the whole business. You could lift a leg and get dropped or stuffed, depending on which side of the market you are on, if you are short or long, taking delivery, or rolling up and rolling out.

Remember this: Bond traders don’t die: they mature or get called away. Money brokers don’t die either, they get dropped or stuffed.

The implied intent of the F-word (F-bomb) rests in the tone and inflection when spoken, and the context within which it is used. It can be very sexy. Unexpected. Especially sexy, and unexpected in an important negotiation, when a beautiful powerful woman lets down her hair. It is like currency and, like currency, has parity only in relation to other currencies. It is all implied, and with the slightest snip and tailoring of vocal inflection, can mean something else. Like FUCK when you hit your thumb really hard with a hammer while hanging a genuine Picasso you picked up cheap at auction, is very different from the F-bomb … long and low—…f…u…c…k…— with reluctant and horrified disbelief. A small and seemingly inconsequential choice, which ordinarily would have no long term, lasting, or devastating effect whatsoever on your life, morphs, and takes on a life of its own, in a perfect storm, as it snowballs into the most monumentally wrong decision you have ever made. An avalanche gathers and you comprehend that your life is, for all intents and purposes, over.

2015

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

F— IS OF COURSE THE VERY FIRST WORD that came to mind when Banker Reed Petty informed me, over a celebratory lemon drop martini, of his intention to run for governor of the great state of Texas.

I have decided to throw my hat in the ring. I’m running for governor! he exclaimed.

That’s wonderful, is what I said, and I smiled and had an out-of-body experience as I lifted my martini glass and toasted him with great enthusiasm. He had invited me and about a hundred other people to join him at this small gathering and I stood beside him and soon people and reporters were asking me questions about Reed, his policies and views. I just smiled. I hadn’t known he was going to announce tonight his intention to run for governor, but that isn’t what I was thinking about at that moment. That’s wonderful," is what I said. F— is what I thought.

I held my tongue, which tends toward sharp, and pushed my hand at him, which he didn’t shake, but instead brought to his lips, but did not kiss. He looked every bit the showman, unmasked, a flash of real peeked out from under the hem of the kimono—Look, look, it’s really me, and you are about to have another f-ing life growth experience! Yes, sirree, step right up!

He held my hand and he said, I need your help to win this election. He tried not to sound too clichéd, too needy, or too demanding too soon. Your skill set, he qualified. He was luring me, as he did all of his victims at the onset, to draw them closer.

My skill set? Any skill set in particular?

I need you to marry me.

Marry you? I didn’t see that coming. But I guess you could call tolerating an aspiring politician a skill set.

Well, you don’t have to say it like that. I mean … I really mean it. You and me. Partners. What do you say?

I didn’t know quite what to say. Be careful what you ask for. Be careful what you say, where you say it, and to whom you say it. It comes back, as a boomerang comes back, but with collected random data, and delivers itself, not uncomplicated, at your feet. How will you handle what is unfolding all around you, as rapidly as you are reading this sentence?

I can give you a great life, Reed continued, cracking a slow, practiced smile. You’ll never want for anything. I will see to it. I’ll begin providing for you financially right away. My attorney will get in touch with you. Tomorrow is soon enough for business. Tonight we celebrate. What do you say? There’s a reason why you are back in my life after all of these years. I’m happy that you are.

I averted my eyes and turned my face. Thirty years. I did not understand why I was back in his life again either—because I had not learned my lesson well enough the first time? Or, because I had learned it only too well—and now I was back. Sometimes I could taste metal or insulin in my mouth.

I had a state contract, one year, with social services on the Tex-Mex border, and the contract was almost up. It had a renewable clause, but it depended on state and federal funding, the economy, budget cuts. I worked at the pleasure of the governor, ironically. The end of the second term for the incumbent governor was looming and Reed had as much a shot at getting nominated as any other solvent candidate, and as good a chance as anyone of winning and becoming the next governor. It was all bigger than I could have imagined. Like Mary when she learned she was carrying the son of God. I mean you could never prepare for that. And what are the odds?

Reed took a step forward, I can help. You help me and I’ll help you. You need to be doing this, this public service work…

Public health, I said.

What?

What I’m doing is public behavioral health work.

Sure. Well, right, he said, as I was saying, ‘you need to be doing this public behavioral health work on a higher level.’ He measured higher level by holding his hand above his head as though he were shielding his eyes from the sun. And you need to be doing it on a political level, at the policy level, where funds are allocated. You can’t do anything on the local level with no money. In this state, even water flows uphill to money. He smiled at me, still, quiet for a few moments, and then he said, Marry me. His eyes were soft, his lips, soft. We can help each other.

You don’t need a wife, Reed. You need a snake charmer.

You know how to charm. You charmed me. Let’s not forget to mention your compensation. You will be paid handsomely for your time and your … you know, trouble, he said. If you promise to be true to me, I promise to be true to you.

Win-win, he held his wine glass to me—is that a yes?

First, I did not know what You will be paid handsomely for your time and your … you know, trouble meant exactly. It didn’t sound win-win to me. It sounded like zero sum game to me, for which the compensation was determined by an unknown index.

A cynical sound must have issued from my lips. The consummate dealmaker, as Native Americans say, all wind, no rain. Promises were words, different from the deeds they proffered, never meant to be kept, never meant to be kept … I said it again and again: It’s only sex, only sex, only…

I mean it. This time … I mean … this time I really mean it, he was saying. He was textbook, the consummate vampire addicted to blood, like a tiger to baby formula. Orca won’t kill— intentionally, that is—but a parasite kills the host slowly and over time. Even arsenic is drinkable. Once.

Come aboard, he was saying … and help me win this election. Come home with me. I love you. I want you. Marry me.

I don’t know quite what to say, is all I managed to say as I turned to depart. There was an emergency, and I was on call, which he said he understood, so why all this now? I pointed to my wristwatch, but his face was crestfallen, his eyes sad.

His strong hands were on me. Think about it.

I nodded. He opened the door. I turned once and stood at a distance watching him already back working the room. A big, loud laugh. I walked to my car.

********************

Quid pro quo? It has been theorized that as society becomes more complex with various and specialized networks of interdependence within and beyond community and national borders, the more people are forced in their own interests to find non-zero-sum solutions. That is, win–win solutions instead of win–lose solutions.

Because we find as our interdependence increases, on the whole, we do better when other people do better as well—so we have to find ways that we can all win, we have to accommodate each other. Bill Clinton

A MALE NURSERY WEB SPIDER will often present the female with a gift such as a fly wrapped in silk when approaching in the hope that this will satisfy her hunger, and get her in the mood. A sneaky guy wraps up a fake offering, such as an inedible seed, worthless bits of flower, cotton, or ant husks wrapped in silk that serve only to distract the female while the male has his way. But once she detects the deception, she will terminate mating early for worthless gifts.

If not satiated, the male will play dead until the female thinks she has gotten away, and then he wakes up and grabs her for another go. The female spider will sometimes attempt to eat the male after mating—her dubious gesture of gratitude for a useless gift and date rape.

********************

The following morning I expected at least a dozen long-stemmed roses, flowers the size of artichokes, a generous and romantic overture, the color yellow, and the size of his native Texas.

Hope springs eternal, and that is a good thing, for the sake of humanity.

CHAPTER 2

MY NAME IS AMANDA FRENCH. My family name French, I believe says it all. We, the French women, were born to wear elegant clothing and accessories, the finer brocades and silks, fluid and cool, raw dupioni and nubby shantung, the texture that is pure sex to the hand that appreciates.

All the women in my family have some sense of the future and will tell you what it holds; and even before I was sure what it was, I knew I had it, the power to see. My grandmother, a healer, could interpret the sky; predict weather patterns, upcoming anomalies, drought, that sort of thing. My sister read hands; tiny crooked lines leading up and down, front to back, thumb to wrist, are the roads she helps to navigate. My aunt could read dreams and tell an expectant mother the sex of her unborn baby. My great-grandmother could heal troublesome ailments and call out evil spirits from the sick, the overlooked, and cursed alike. And her mother, my great-great-grandmother before her, was known to associate with ghosts—the spirits that have passed over— but not before promising to return and tell all, which they did by channeling through her in different languages. Her sister, my great-aunt, could tell you the day and time of your birth and the day and time of your death.

Sometimes I know the future in my breast. Sometimes I see the future coming out like a picture show, images that seep into your head the way rainwater collects in a basement corner, gathering from no place in particular. More often though, I see events in tea leaves, little bits of myself floating to the top of a shapely Spode china cup, tentatively dancing along the fragile gold leaf rim, like your last memories in the few minutes before death. Often as I would stare down into my tomorrow, wondering if I should drink the brew or run to the sink and pour it down the drain, I tended toward the latter. It’s not that a particular vision was so frightening or alien—I grew up, after all, with these gifted women around me conversing with entities neither you nor I could see—it’s just the memory of seeing trouble early in a courtship and remembering what it felt like, one lone tear snaking down my face, and my words all square and neat as I told him, I love you but … I see no future. Or, I did see a future, and there was no happiness in it. But, with this man, with Reed, I never saw a blessed thing. I never saw anything at all in the beginning. If I had, it would have been as shocking, I’m sure, as seeing blood on the moon. I guess it’s true what they say, that you never see the bus that hits you.

CHAPTER 3

A MONEY BROKER IS A BANKER’S BROKER. A money broker identifies international financial institutions that have a net gain or a net loss at the end of the day and need to buy/borrow or sell/lend money into the open market in order to bring their position to flat. The institutional marketplace back in the day of the inverted yield curve and double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates—the early eighties—had only a few women who gained access to the floor down on Broadway & Church Street. They rolled up the sleeves of monogrammed shirts and got into the ring in their gray flannel pencil skirts and played ball like the rest of those who directed the flow of oil, currency futures, global credits and debits into every money center on the planet. They even crawled into the wee tiny crevices of wire-lighted caves straddling half in Africa, half in Asia. It was chaotic din, this war chant, inside a trading room, and how anything got done without enormous incident, in retrospect, is anybody’s guess. There was so much bubbling just under the surface of this sudden rebirthing of a nation, high on laughing gas, natural gas, crude oil, spot and futures, expanding into global markets, no longer tied to the price of gold. The platinum standard, the greenback, that is, the U.S. dollar was the dearest currency, just ahead of Deutsche marks and Swiss francs, having replaced Britain’s pound sterling as the world currency. Technology was building to tsunami proportions and the Microsoft IPO had not yet even come to market. It was not an electronic-transparent market yet either, and deals still got done over martinis, trysts, golf games, and secret handshakes. The one hard-and-fast rule remained: Don’t throw the bat.

Those guys in the cave—literally crouched down on their hind quarters eating dry dates dusted with grit—figured out that they were literally sitting on trillions of barrels of free money. They pulled their wagons into a circle and they stood, for the most part, united. Just the behavior you would describe as tribal, group-think with nuances of a thousand tribes. That can get hairy in a hurry. Just give it a hot wind. They were a free democracy, these young Arabs stated, and they spoke English. They demanded respect; that was number one. The young Turks in the international markets, they wanted safety. Where best to keep their oil assets but in the United States at the Chase Manhattan Bank, New York State Chartered, the fifth largest bank in the world, run by David Rockefeller, best friend of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger? And in which currency would it be best to stockpile all of the credit that was about to befall the united kingdoms of the emirates, global oil cartel, OPEC, but in U.S. dollars?

American dollars came to be known as petrodollars back in the day, back in the eighties. Entire countries were forced to convert their currency into Teflon safe U.S. dollars in order to purchase OPEC oil. Countries pledged all of their natural resources in order to buy U.S.-denominated petrodollars, so they could buy oil to heat the homes of their citizens and run their economic machinery. That was the first wave of countries defaulting.

Soon the major banks and bank currency traders discovered that they could increase their total yield on currency trades—before they poked some holes in the Glass-Steagall Act (restrictive) and allowed the banks to gamble (permissive)—by transacting offshore—like in London, Paris, Milan, Panama, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands. Offshore trades did not require the bank to keep ten per cent of their cash assets in escrow and at the Federal Reserve Bank. If you traded offshore, 100 percent got invested instead of 90 %. When you are trading billions, in a double-digit interest rate environment, an additional 10% at the higher interest rate really adds up. In other words, if Citibank sells, or lends, 10 million dollars to Continental Illinois Bank in the U.S., Continental Bank can only relend 9 million. But if they transact this same business in London, or Toronto, or the Cayman Islands, where there is no mandatory reserve requirement, Continental Bank can relend the entire 10 million, which makes a big difference, especially when the trade is for 100 million or 500 million, compounding double-digit interest rate, per diem. It added up.

A money broker facilitates trades between small banks and international banks, both onshore and offshore. The regional banks, like small farming banks in the Midwest, were growing in assets and becoming more sophisticated. They began passing excess Fed Funds along to major banks that take a spread and most of the liability, and then they reinvest it off shore. Foundations, municipalities, corporations, and other financial institutions began to circumvent the money brokers and lend money directly offshore—heating up velocity and money growth, as well as inflation—in order to garner even higher yields. Brokers (like me) developed territories where we gather money from institutions that enjoy a constant predictable flow of regional money, from grain farms and oil patches, corn, hogs, and soybeans. Territories like Oklahoma City, Dallas, and Houston—where black money (oil) flowed—or, Miami—where snow (cocaine & opiates) commerced in plastic bags or aluminum foil were volatile and unpredictable. Unlike San Diego and San Francisco, where imports from China, Japan, and Korea docked regularly and on-time. They swapped containers filled with Nike footwear and Suzuki motorcycles for Banker’s Acceptances, securitized Bills of Lading, and Letters of Credit on drawn on U.S. banks. Money brokers are the quintessential camel traders, and they trade everything, mostly paper, IOUs.

In addition to traders and intermediaries for the regional banks, an interbank money broker, like I was, develops relationships with state officials, local treasurers, corporate and university foundations. In short, money traders identify point contacts in spheres of influence where there are pools of money. Like state treasurers who are in charge of structuring the tightly earmarked bond proceeds in short-term liquid preferably insured instruments or jumbo euro CDs of premier banks. Sometimes a line-of-credit is full, or partly full, and the huge block of money needs to be carved up and doled out to various banks in various banking centers. All of this relies on being right in the market and having the relationships to get it done, quickly and competitively.

I WAS AN INTERBANK MONEY BROKER working for Maxcor Int’l on the top floor of one of the WTC towers in NYC the morning of the day